LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 24
Chapter 24: Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Thanks to Mikyung, the rumors about Hyoyoung’s family changed by the end of the first period. The new gossip now involved Hyoyoung taking care of her idiot brother and his messes because both of her parents were too busy.
By lunchtime, when Hyoyoung woke up from her nap, she noticed that her desk was stacked with consoling snacks from her classmates.
Lunchtime.
Hyoyoung ate quickly and went out to the school field to sit on a bench. She stretched loudly and looked up at the sky. Remembering the confusing events the night before, Hyoyoung closed her eyes to organize her thoughts.
The text message The M members received at the same time were all from the agency’s CEO.
-The entertainment news Real Patch’s reporter Seoyun Lee contacted me. Is it true that Purple’s crush is Black’s little sister? And you guys, including the sister, are all living in the same house? You guys promised me that you will be discreet and remain well-hidden, yet this is what happens. What are you all going to do? At this rate, it is only a matter of time before the paparazzi find out who you guys are.
The only person who didn’t react was Blue M, Hyunsuk.
Jiwoo was in a panic while Kiwook’s legs trembled in shock. Hyojun, who was driving, looked angry and frustrated. He started to drive aggressively.
The most shocked one in the group, however, was Hyoyoung.
‘What the heck?! It was only 10 minutes ago when I agreed to accept him, yet the reporters already know about me? How? Who is this reporter?’
The rest of the car ride was quiet and when they arrived home, they gathered around the table in the living room for an emergency meeting.
Everyone looked tense and quiet, and it was Hyojun who broke the silence.
He looked furious as he stood up to grab Kiwook and punched him, causing him to fall to the floor. Hyojun yelled, “You bastard!”
“Oppa!”
Hyoyoung, shocked, ran to Kiwook and stood between him and Hyojun.
Hyojun shouted angrily, “Hyoyoung, get out of my way, right now!”
Hyojun’s hands were balled into fists, but Hyoyoung refused to move. She shook her head and replied, “This isn’t the way to solve this problem. Why are you acting like a child?”
“Are you taking Kiwook’s side?”
“There is no side, you know better! Violence isn’t the way!”
While Hyojun and Hyoyoung argued tensely, Kiwook finally stood up and took Hyoyoung’s hand.
“It’s ok, Hyoyoung. You don’t have to defend me.”
Hyojun stared at their hands and ordered in a deadly voice, “Let go of her hand, right now.”
To everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t Kiwook who answered first. It was Hyoyoung.
“No.”
Everyone’s eyes widened in shock as Hyoyoung continued, “It is none of your business whose hand I hold, Hyojun Oppa. Besides, what is most important now is how to prevent The M’s identity from being found out! Why do you keep straying away from the most important issue here? Protecting the group’s secret is our priority.”
Hyunsuk nodded at Hyoyoung’s logic and Jiwoo suggested, “Alright. Hyoyoung is absolutely right. The first thing we should do is to talk to our CEO. We need to find out what really happened with that reporter.”
Hyojun sighed deeply. He didn’t like it, but he had to agree. He took out his cell phone and called their CEO.
“Hello, sir?”
“Oh, Black. What’s up?”
“It’s about the text message you sent to our phones.”
“What text?”
“… Pardon? You… you didn’t send a group text to all of us just now?”
“No. I’m in the Maldives right now. You guys told me you can take care of yourselves, so I took a vacation.”
“Oh, really? So you are really in the Maldives?”
“Yup. What text message are you talking about? What did it say?”
“It’s nothing serious. It just said that a reporter named Seoyun Lee from Real Patch knows about our identity.”
“What are you talking about? I know every single reporter in Real Patch, and there’s no one named Seoyun Lee. Are you sure you didn’t just get a spam text? The message was sent from my name?”
“Oh… there is a lot of voice phishing going around nowadays so it must’ve been that. Don’t worry about it. Have a nice time.”
“Alright. Oh and hey, tell Purple to take care of this situation about him blurting out that he has a crush on someone. The reporters and the paparazzi are hounding me nonstop about it. It’s so bad that I’m afraid to go back to Korea. Just get Purple to tell the media that he made it up, or that he was talking about a character from a book or something. Make this go away! Fix it! Why did he do this? If I was there, I would’ve smacked him so hard! Gosh…”
“Alright. I will tell him. I hope you have a nice time.”
After hanging up, Jiwoo asked in a panic, “Oh my god. So he said that the texts weren’t from him? What’s happening here?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t get it. He also said he has never heard of this reporter.”
Suddenly, Hyunsuk, who was sitting in the corner watching quietly, said to everyone, “I sent the texts. It was me.”
“What?”
“I said, I sent those texts.”
Everyone was stunned and speechless. After a long bewildered silence, Hyoyoung finally opened her mouth.
“W-why?”
Everyone turned towards Hyunsuk for an answer.
“I wanted to see how you would all react when something like this happens… I thought we should be ready for it before it actually happens.”
Kiwook yelled angrily, “You went too far, Hyunsuk!”
Jiwoo and Hyojun agreed and started to get angry at Hyunsuk, who listened quietly before replying, “You think I went too far? Well, you know what I think? I think you guys are ridiculous. The first reaction from Hyojun was to punch Kiwook before figuring out the situation. Kiwook, you froze rather than doing anything. You didn’t protect Hyoyoung at all. Jiwoo, you did nothing. I understand the emotions you must’ve felt. Shock, anger, panic, and worry. But none of you did anything rational about it, except for one person. Hyoyoung. Ironically, she would’ve been the one who got hurt the most from this kind of scandal, yet she was the calmest and most sensible of us all. Do you guys realize that Hyoyoung is the youngest and the most vulnerable in this room? Yet she tried to fix it, and she was very good. I think the problem isn’t the fact that I sent a bogus message. The problem is you three.”